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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29739174">et in arcadia</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/dissembler/pseuds/dissembler'>dissembler</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>pedagogy [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Peter Pan (2003), Peter Pan - J. M. Barrie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Classical References, General Creepiness, M/M, Sexual Fantasy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 21:09:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,265</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29739174</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/dissembler/pseuds/dissembler</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Like a Praxitelean faun, an exquisite statue, Pan ensnares the onlooker.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James Hook/Peter Pan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>pedagogy [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2173335</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>et in arcadia</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He had set to walking lest he kill too many of his crew and make sailing difficult. Their nattering, their inanities, had begun to turn what was already a dark mood – no sightings of Pan by spyglass for days on end, the necessity of gathering supplies taking them onto the island – to purest black and so he had left them, barking an order to Smee to keep them in line until he returned. </p><p>Now, without marking it he has made his way so far into this side of the forest that he can hear the gentle sound of the river that bisects it, and has walked so long that even among the deep, humming green of the trees he can tell that the sun has begun its descent. Soft pink light beckons, along with the gurgle of the water, through gaps in the thick, ferny wall of the forest and, with the intent to fill his waterskein before turning back to his crew, he follows the light.</p><p>Before he can leave the shelter of the dark he is brought entirely to a halt: across the water, lit in the warmth of the dying sun, a boy stands. But not just a boy, <em> the </em> boy; James can tell it in some creeping, ineffable ways just as he can tell it by his eyes, for among his band of ruffians only Peter Pan is kit out not in bear skins but in cloth of leaf and spider’s gossamer. </p><p>Instinct raises his pistol but aesthetics pull him short of cocking it, and instead he gazes at the sight laid out before him like a tableau, a painting, a dream. For it is of his dreams, at least the recent turn of some. Since the last time they met, upon the empty deck, James’ dreams of Pan – as opposed his dreams of cricket, or of music – have taken two forms: one half are expected, the common narratives beginning with a marvelous trap or an easy fight and ending with a perfect triumph of blood that had been up to now his only dreams of Pan; the other half, the new ones, do not end wet with blood, in these, victorious, he bears the boy down onto the deck, onto the forest floor, onto the stone of Skull Rock... onto his own white sheets. </p><p>This could easily be the beginning of such a dream. Like a shepherd in a pastoral or a faun in a fresco, leaning against a tree with one foot on the grass and the other half off of it, toe to heel, this image of Pan invites the gaze to the curl of his hair, the turn of his wrists, the curve of his body and the angle of his waist. And just like a statue, or a painted figure, he is unaware of this; his head is tilted down, his line of sight encompassing only the point at which the bank gives way to the sparkling of the water, he cannot see the man who sees him. Were this such a dream, James could simply cross the shallow water and take him up, but the knife at the boy’s waist and the sword at the waist — and the hook, and the gun held uselessly in the hand — of the man belie the bucolic and in James’ dreams of this sort his Arcadian youth is unarmed. </p><p>This knowledge, that he has the real Pan in his sights, ought he knows be enough to make him raise his pistol and take aim but in place of the black rage he needs to do it, what chokes him instead is a warmer, earthier emotion.</p><p>Would that this were a dream! Would that Pan were truly a Dionysian faun or Arcadian shepherd boy, biddable, more than happy to be led down and buggered in the long grass. James imagines crossing over to him, taking him by the hand and laying the boy down on the riverbank. He would draw the point of his hook across the plush pink lips that in life so often taunt him but in these dreams never have, and draw his hand along the half-soft, half-firm lines of his waist – caresses in place of cuts – and use the sweat of their exertion to make slippery the passage between his thighs. He imagines the boy’s soft murmurs, sweet little noises of assent, of unexpected pleasure as James’ hand roamed the warmth of his body and then dove down to the crux of the matter– </p><p>His imaginings are cut off by the heat of a body against his back and the cool edge of a knife under his chin. The warm pink of the setting sun is gone, in its place the purple-grey of dusk and James cannot bear to think of how long he has spent in his weak, lust-blind haze. He raises his hook to jab over his shoulder but Pan catches his wrist and manages to keep him off, shifting until the blade cuts into James’ skin.</p><p>“Oh,” says Pan, the breath of it cool through James’ hair. “Oh, the cleverness of me.”</p><p>Now, rage does not elude him, but now, his rage is impotent. </p><p>“Pan,” he says, levelly. </p><p>“Hook,” comes the reply, tinged with laughter that slices James just as the knife does. “You were watching me.”</p><p>James steels himself, adopts a haughty tone and says, “Yes. I was. Though, of course, you don’t know why.”</p><p>Pan makes an affronted noise and uses the knife to tilt James’ head up.</p><p>“I do know.”</p><p>He doesn’t, he can’t. All he knows of this prurient part of mankind is that knowledge which James had given him last time they met. He would not lower himself to ask his lost boys, nor would those foolish children have answers for him. The bluff has James coldly furious.</p><p>“You don’t,” he says, laughing despite the rage and the blade and the trickle of his own vile blood, sure to stain his shirt. “I wasn’t hunting you,” he taunts. “I wasn’t aiming at you…”</p><p>Pan breathes out unsteadily in his ear and in an instant he releases James’ wrist to press his hand between James’ legs.</p><p>James sucks in a jagged breath, feeling himself – already firm from the lasciviousness of the daydream – filling at the touch. </p><p>“I know,” says Pan again. “I know that you <em> want</em>.”</p><p>Enraged, James turns, slashing with his hook at the air where Pan had been and snarling, spitting mad. But Pan is too quick, he hovers now to the left, now the right, now in front James but always just out of range of sword or hook and when James draws and cocks his pistol the boy does not flee but simply laughs. </p><p>Pan grins at him, white teeth showing between shining, plush lips, with the sharp poke of wet tongue between them. And this Pan is the Pan of James’ blackest dreams, the dreams in which James violates every rule of fair play in the book, unexpurgated, and James cannot shoot him. </p><p>With a final flashing smile and an awful, jubilant cry of glee, Pan flies off, disappearing between the trees on the far bank, and James roars, sending off a desperate shot behind him. Bested by his own infernal weakness, his own yawning need.</p><p>Eventually his pirates find him, but at the sight of him, handkerchief to his neck and burning ice in his eyes they keep mum and his dreams that night begin vicious, but they end on that riverbank bathed in warmth and rosy light. He wakes frightened and cold.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Me: the point of this is that Hook is very much the you in “you wanna fuck me so bad it makes you look stupid”<br/>Pal: HELL YEAH</p></blockquote></div></div>
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